I’ll be honest. I went into National Treasure fully expecting to be able to remorselessly rip the movie to shreds in this review. Fear not, gentle reader. I’ll be nice ... more or less.
National Treasure is the story of Benjamin Franklin Gates (Nicolas Cage), who is initiated as a young boy into the oft-mocked “Gates Family Legacy” of hunting for a possibly specious treasure. The only clue leading to said treasure is a death bed utterance of “The secret lies with Charlotte.”
The beginning of the movie abruptly throws the watcher into a snowy expanse where we are treated to an amazingly abstruse stream-of-consciousness monologue by Ben Gates as he figures out a clue to the treasure. This sets the mood of the movie, and it feels a lot like Dan Brown’s recently popular novel, The DaVinci Code.
However, the movie earned a special spot in my heart as it switched gears for a short bit. If you’ve seen the previews, it won’t come as a surprise to you that Gates plans to steal the Declaration of Independence. Therefore, the next bit of the movie is a departure from the hunt for treasure.
It’s got the planning, the tech whiz kid, the romantic subplot, the brains versus brawn angle, and all the last-minute twists of a full-blown heist movie packed into the space of a standard television show. Heck, if it had been a television show it would have earned four stars in my book.
But the movie keeps going. The 130 minute running time had me checking my watch frequently by the end of the showing. There’s only so much conspiracy theory I can take in one sitting, and National Treasure tested my limits. The comic relief, courtesy of sidekick Riley Poole (Justin Bartha), was formulaic and utterly predictable.
Then again, I didn’t expect a witty screenplay from the duo who brought us I Spy and Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle. The story idea itself seems to have been lifted directly from an Indiana Jones movie, simply changing the object of desire from the Holy Grail (with its politically incorrect overtones) to a much more socially acceptable “piles and piles of gold.”
However, I’m pretty sure Harrison Ford plays a better treasure hunter. He definitely has a cooler outfit, and a whip. Cage just has his trademark hands-splayed “hold on a minute” technique. Up against multimillionaire rival treasure-hunter Ian Howe (Sean Bean), splayed hands don’t mean much.
All in all, the movie seems to be a way to cash in on the Masonry mania that has gripped the country ever since publication of The DaVinci Code, before a movie based on the book is released next year. As in Brown’s book, the purpose of the mini-puzzles and clues seems to be to make the watchers feel smart if they can figure out the answer before the characters. It’s exactly like foreshadowing, but amazingly blatant, obtrusive, and just plain annoying.
If you just can’t get enough of conspiracy theories and treasure hunting, you’re better off heading to the used bookstore and spending your ten dollars on a book like Brown’s Angels and Demons, Grossman’s Codex, or Caldwell’s The Rule of Four. The only reason I can think of to actually attend National Treasure is just to hear Cage quote the Declaration of Independence. C’mon—picture him saying “usurpations” or “despotism.” It’s the most memorable part of the movie, I swear.
